


magic comes at a price

by Ringleader



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Darling Pan - Freeform, F/M, always au always, best to read it with some instrumentals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ringleader/pseuds/Ringleader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He traded his heart for an eternity of youth without knowing the weight of that price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	magic comes at a price

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely an AU for Darling Pan because I do not accepted canon and will continue to refuse canon. This is set during 2.21 Second Star to the Right.

Peter Pan did not love Wendy Darling. He did not, he could not and he would not. If he did love the girl, would he have let her go – would she have ever been even able to escape him?

_No, no, no._

Peter just knew he did not love Wendy. He had known that love was something he could never feel.  Love was something that probably belonged to the world of growing adolescents and boring adults (it will stay there).  Having love, thinking of love or wanting love on Neverland is high treason in the eyes of Peter; anyone who knew what was good for them was better off not mentioning it in his presence (and his presence, his being is Neverland itself). To feel love would mean he was growing up and he refused it as much as he could. This type of feeling  (was it an emotion, an action? Peter couldn’t properly define it) was foreign to a boy who had left everything in his life – his parents, his newborn brother and his future – he could not recall what it was like to really love anything else other than his freedom and the adventure that comes with it.

They always say there’s a price for magic and that much Peter knew was true. He traded his heart, his true heart for the life of an eternity of just being a boy who would play for hours on end (giving up something as silly as love for eternal youth, to never to feel responsible or suffocate under the pressures of being an adult – Peter was not going to throw that chance away). After he had traded his heart for this life in Neverland, he would never look back. At least not until Wendy Darling had arrived on Neverland.

For hundreds of years there had been only boys, pirates, faeries and mermaids on the island. Neverland was a sort of colorful place that most children dream of or may have at least heard of from the stories told from the mouths of other dreaming children.  There were only boys on the grounds of Neverland, ever girls. Girls were far too clever to ever get stuck in that world. None of them ever wanted to stay, either. They all come for the same reason: for a night to escape and forget their troubles, but Wendy was different. She wanted more than anything to stay and that was why she had to leave.

Wendy Moira Angela Darling (what a ridiculous name she had, Peter thought) was the eldest of three children, she was to become a lady and enter society soon, but she did not feel like she was ready for the worlds of adults. No, oh no, she much preferred the world that she thought of in her little daydreams in class. She’d escape to this magical island every day and night whenever she closed her eyes.

Wendy was fooled by her dreams and oh so fooled by the way Neverland looked in the light. In her dreams, her visits, the Neverland she knew was warm and bright. Everything about it was so fairy tale and fantastic! How she loved it. There would be so many children would be there playing and having the adventures they were told they were silly to even utter a thought about;  no one hovering over their shoulders, whispering, yelling, repeating to them to stop and to think of their reputations and futures.  She would wander through Neverland during her nightly more freely and with each night, her trips became longer and longer. Oh how she wished she could stay there forever, but forever was a long time; longer than never – possibly it was. Wendy was too blinded by fantasy she had built up in her mind to ever notice the darker sides of Neverland.  

She did not know of the children who actually lived on the island, no. The only children she had ever run around with were other children who were visitors just like herself. They were never the ones who stayed, for they could not hear the Piper’s song.  She would never meet the Boy who the island itself feared – never was she ever able to cross paths with him and if she did, would she had wanted to leave Neverland and never comeback; no, Peter Pan knew the answer to that (no, she was curious and she’d stay because it’d make her believe even more). Like every other nightly visit, she would wake up before the cries of the children forced to stay could ever reach her.

Wendy was a warm type of person. She was very kind to those she did not know and wanted to believe, yes believe, in the best of people. Such a sweet, sweet, sweet girl she was,  so lucky that she had not been exposed to the brutality of society, nor had she never felt what it feels  like to be abandoned or not have hope– how could she? And even if she did have a chance to experience the worst of what the real world had offered, her heart was too strong, too full of light, to be dimmed out and dulled by such matters. This was all the more reason why she did not belong on the grounds of Neverland.  Her heart was full of love and that was why the song of the Piper had not even grazed her. She was not meant for Neverland, she did not belong but that did not stop her from going.

No, Wendy was fated to adventure to that world. It was long decided she would one night run, run – no fly, fly far away from home (she ignored the warnings of her new brother, Baelfire – he cares for her, for sure but she felt it in her bones that the island was calling out to her). She’d take the hand of a shadow creature to finally live on her lovely Neverland. Wendy’s entrance was one to always be remembered. She was the first girl to have ever made it onto Neverland without dreaming, the first to come of her own free will and the first to want to stay. It didn’t help that she came crashing down onto Peter Pan’s camp (it was funny now that Peter thought about it, funny how she was always unexpected in every turn about her).  

Maybe it was the way she smiled at the young Lost Boys for being overly eager about having a Mother or the way she would completely freeze up at the lack of order, manners or consideration the Lost Boys and their Leader had or how she was the only person who would dare to speak back to him – whatever it was, Peter was taken in by her everything. So taken in by her golden curls, by the way her lips curved themselves slightly and unevenly when she was crossed or happy.

He didn’t understand. He did not understand. He could not understand the riddle that was Wendy Moira Angela Darling (well, she is a girl and there aren't many girls or any girls on Neverland. How was Peter supposed to know). He could never solve what was it that drove him near the edge of insanity whenever she walked by him – was it because she just smelled of lovely things and actually washed or was it something beyond that. All Peter knew was that he didn’t want her on his island any longer. No, the longer she was there, the more curious he would become and being curious means adventuring into things he had not been ready for and will never allow himself to feel this vulnerable and unsure of himself.

Peter decides that he wants to resolve this as fast as he possibly can. He needs Wendy, the Mother, the Wendy-bird – he needs her to leave Neverland. He calls her out during one of the nights, not that same night he had the idea of sending her back home, maybe just a few nights after because he wanted to be completely sure of himself, but he eventually sends one of his boys to relay his message. She would meet him nearby the Pixie Hollow. It was her favorite place to be on Neverland – how cruel of him to do what he is about do here to her, but that was the whole point of picking this place (boys can be oh so very vicious). There were faeries all around them, flowers filled with pixie dust that glowed whenever the moon was able to break through the leaves to shine upon them and it was where Wendy had taught him to dance. The aura and the setting was a huge contrast to what was going between Peter and Wendy.

If the Lost Boys were not busy dancing around and playing, they would hear the cries of their beloved mother.  Wendy was not happy, no she was not. She was yelling back (he expected nothing less from his _wife_ ) and unwilling to go. Peter called for his shadow to grab onto her and take her back to her _family_ (as he says that word, Wendy could feel the contempt dripping from his mouth) and commands his Shadow to never allow her to call for it; she is never to set foot on Neverland again.  

“You are hereby banished from Neverland, Wendy.” He says with his signature triumphed grin when she finally arrives.  He does not consider or care to give her a moment or spare her the time to take in what is happening. He whistles to signal his shadow to take her immediately. Wendy is shocked, angry and possibly sad – but Peter does not care for her _feelings_ – all that mattered was his own feelings and that he was pleased. He is finally free of her lullabies, her stories and her laughter. He is going to be free of everything once again. He can finally breathe the air around his land without feeling her in his lungs.

While he was settling down in his soon to be blissful eternity without her, Peter had forgotten who was sending away – who he was underestimating. He had miscalculated what she could do to him. Never did he think in the centuries he had spent on Neverland would there be a single person who could leave him thinking and questioning his future.

“I think you’re just afraid, Peter; afraid to grow up, afraid to have love or even be loved,” she stated calmly, her muscles no longer tense around the shoulders his Shadow had its’ grip on, she had settled into it “I’m not afraid, Peter. I want to go home.” Wendy was leaving because she wanted to and not because he commanded it.  

_No, no, no._

Wendy had once dared to voice herself and stand her ground against Peter once before when they were sitting at dinner and he told the boys to line up for target practice, it was honestly a _child’s error_ for him to not even consider that she would stand up to him again.

Being stunned by her words and the moment, Peter did not notice that Wendy near gone. Even if he had flown after her, what was he going to say to her? What did he want to say to her? That she was wrong, that he wasn’t afraid? No, he could not say that because he didn’t know love. Love just doesn’t exist in his world. He had long ago forsaken that heart of his and he knew arguing with her otherwise would mean giving up everything he had built up until now. Peter would regret sending Wendy away for the next several years (and maybe the rest of his years for as long as he can remember).

Sometimes Peter would catch himself looking for Wendy whenever the next morning would arrive on Neverland. Mornings were usually when the dreaming children would come to play during their slumber. She told the Lost Boys and him about her dreams and frequent visits she had before she had come to live on Neverland with them and some part of him hoped that she never stopped dreaming about adventure, about Neverland and about him. Wendy never stopped dreaming, no of course not, she just had different dreams now. Dreams of becoming a respectable lady, dreams of finding love and being married to the one she loved and so many other dreams that were beyond his barely pubescent understanding.

Peter would slowly grow more aggravated one day after the next whenever the new children would come. He knew _she_ , that girl (the name that must not be said), would not be there. He had grown (how ironic that was) acquainted with a new type of feeling – disappointment. Of course he did not enjoy it, but he Peter hadn’t the slightest idea about how to cure it. He could go and bother the pirates and start fights with the captain or stir up some mischief with the faeries as much as he liked, but the feeling would always come back every single morning.

Finally, he decides that it he had enough of it; enough of this feeling and enough of not remembering what her smile looked like.  Peter declares to himself that his banishment of _her_ , that girl, should be lifted.  If he should remove his command, to tell her he had changed his mind, would that mean he would have to tell her he was…sorry? Whatever, he didn’t need to think about the details; they were never important. Wendy would be thrilled to be back, he was so sure of it.

He set out to journey to her world (with his shadow providing him direction where she lived, he doesn’t remember these sorts of trivial matters – it’s overwhelming enough to remember his Lost Boys’ names) later on during the late night when the boys were fast asleep. He wanted Wendy’s return to be a surprise. They were going to worship him and love him even more than they already did for bringing back their mother. Oh he liked the sound of that. Unknown to Peter, the fates had another plan for him and it was to remind him of the price he paid many, many years ago.

His shadow takes him to London, England and he feels as if this place were familiar (of course he feels, but he does not remember) to him once before, but quickly shrugs of the feeling. They fly past the Kensington Gardens and head onward to the busy streets to reach the suburbs. His shadow makes a stop at rather plain home (it looked like just the others on the block, but slightly older) and makes a gesture to Peter to inform him that they had arrived at their destination: the residence of the Darling family. Everything about the house felt familiar. Peter had flown there once in attempt to close the window for the Darling Nursery room (if the window was closed, Wendy could never return and would remain in Neverland, stay with him forever – he once liked the idea of that), but that memory was a lifetime ago to him. Time was different for Peter, time was still and time was having an endless amount of days to live out all the lifetimes he could imagine.

 _Creak, creak, creak_ – these were the sounds that the front door was making and it gave Peter quite the scare, but he had enough time to collect himself and hide himself away from the eyes of whoever was coming out of the house. Who came out from the Darling residence wasn’t _his_ Wendy. No, it was someone who might have looked like her (a sister perhaps, but Peter knew she had no sisters). It isn’t until she speaks to the man who follows her out the door that he knows that it is her, she is that girl, his Wendy.

She has changed. She has left him. She has grown up.

_No, no, no!_

This was not supposed to happen. He was sure he didn’t come too late; she couldn’t have grown up that fast, could she? (if Peter had been aware of how fast girls matured, he might have thrown that banishment out of the window and come to retrieve her)

As Peter tries to calm himself, he watches her. His eyes wandered from the lower half of her body to the top half. He was trying so hard to find a feature on Wendy that did not change, something to help him reason that she was still that girl he once knew. There was nothing, not even her smile was the same. Her smile was no longer filled with dreams and fairy tales; it was now filled with a bite of curiosity (the kind of curiosity a child, no, Peter did not understand) and adult charm. It was disgusting, so disgusting to him to watch her cheeks turn melt into the pink shade that she once wore when they danced.

He could not bear to watch any longer, but his shadow held him down, kept him from flying up to her. They waited until Wendy and her gentlemen friend had finished their conversation and said their goodbyes before coming out of hiding. But of course, Peter comes out too late and the door is shut. Wendy Darling has closed the door not just on him, but the past. She was an adult now and it was something he could not object to or change.

He knew he could not stay any longer.  She said she was ready to leave and was not afraid of this world and he had to accept it. There is no magic that can undo what he did; no magic that had a price he could pay.

Peter was to fly back to Neverland with a reminder of how empty this eternity he traded his heart for. Magic comes at a price and the price he paid was a heavy one. Peter did not understand the meaning of love, he did not value it, nor did he know how to deal with loving someone or being loved. That was why the trade was so easy for him. Meeting Wendy changed that. He loved her smile, he really did. He loved the way her eyes would close, crinkle at the lids every time she would smile for him. He had fallen in love with her; he loved her, he loves her and always will love her. Though, with the circumstances and the price already paid, he would never know it was love.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it and yeah. This fic is definitely made in thought of the Darling Pan fandom. Thanks for being so awesome with all the fics, manips, fanvids and fanmixes. You make my day and I hope that my contribution is something you enjoy.


End file.
